Food Bank Provides ‘Souper’ Weekend For Fort Smith Students

Food Bank Provides ‘Souper’ Weekend For Fort Smith Students

Rachel Rodemann • Times Record / Jade Armour hands a decorated Valentine's Day bag containing a can of soup to Kaitlyn Garcia, kindergarten student at Albert Pike Elementary, Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, as part of the school's Valentine's Day celebration and the River Valley Regional Food Bank's effort to ensure that all students have a meal on the Presidents Day holiday on Monday.

Food Bank Provides ‘Souper’ Weekend For Fort Smith Students

Rachel Rodemann • Times Record / Madison Rogers, kindergarten student at Albert Pike Elementary, examines her bag of soup, Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, as part of the school's Valentine's Day celebration and the River Valley Regional Food Bank's effort to ensure that all students have a meal on the Presidents Day holiday on Monday.

Food Bank Provides ‘Souper’ Weekend For Fort Smith Students

Rachel Rodemann • Times Record / Ken Kupchick unloads 560 cans of soup in decorative Valentine's Day wrapping to give out at Albert Pike Elementary, Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, as part of the school's Valentine's Day celebration and the River Valley Regional Food Bank's effort to ensure that all students have a meal on the Presidents Day holiday on Monday.

While lovers warmed each other’s hearts with candy and flowers to celebrate Valentine’s Day, those at the River Valley Regional Food Bank showed love to thousands of Fort Smith students by giving them a far greater gift — food to warm their bellies.

More than 8,000 cans of soup were given Friday to 17 Fort Smith elementary schools and one junior high, providing students with what might be their only meal during the three-day weekend. Students will be out of school Monday for the Presidents Day holiday.

“I remember sitting in a Step Up Speak Out meeting with Robyn Dawson (principal of Spradling Elementary), and she said, ‘My school is practically 100 percent free and reduced (price) lunch.’ That blew me away,” explained Ken Kupchick, director of marketing at the River Valley Regional Food Bank. “Since that point, I have been inquiring at the state level for information about the schools.”

After collecting data from all the area schools, Kupchick offered some surprising statistics. In the Fort Smith School District, 86.1 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, he said, gesturing to a chart glowing with highlighted numbers, including several schools with fewer than two dozen students actually able to pay for their lunches.

While compiling these statistics, Kupchick paid Dawson another visit on a busy Tuesday following the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Flanked in the waiting area by students, Kupchick asked a little boy how he was feeling. “His answer was ‘ter-ri-ble,’ and it was so precious how it was dragged out — we had every syllable,” Kupchick recalled.

When it was his turn to visit with Dawson, Kupchick remarked how precious the children in the lobby were, waiting impatiently for their parents.

“And she said, ‘You know I have this problem after every three-day weekend. These kids come in to school depleted.’ Depleted was the word she used,” Kupchick said. “She said their food on that third day may be no more than a Pop-Tart pack or ramen noodle soup and she said when they get back to school, they aren’t ready to learn.”

“That just melted my heart,” he said. “And all of this comes together and you flash forward, and you say, ‘We’re going to have this same problem a month from now at Presidents Day.’ So this has been organically grown from that moment.”

The River Valley Regional Food bank contacted the school district to OK a soup giveaway, then started making phone calls, Kupchick said. “And it was ‘count me in, count me in.’ The Partners in Education stepped forward, the food bank partners stepped forward, and we had a program.”

At each of the 18 Fort Smith schools that received cans, a team of volunteers stood ready to help hand out the soup to each classroom.

Jennifer Kelly and her daughter, Jade Armour, visited Albert Pike Elementary School during the school Valentine’s Day party.

“I was never hungry as a child,” Kelly said as she prepared bags for delivery, “And it breaks my heart to know there are children who are.”

With a big smile, Armour handed bags decorated with bright lace hearts that said, “Have a Souper Weekend” to students who took them with grins. Giggles, smiles and squeaky “thank yous” followed as the children carried the cans back to their desks.

“I love soup!” said Madison Rogers, a 6-year-old Albert Pike kindergarten student. “Yummy, yummy soup.” She said she guessed it would be cold over the weekend so she was excited for a warm lunch.